Category: Campus life

George Dreckmann is the recycling coordinator for the Madison Streets & Recycling Department, as well as the administrator of the Madison Stuff Exchange. Well-known for his gregarious personality and his commitment to salvaging all that is reusable, Dreckmann marshals the city’s forces every August to tackle the more than 1.6 million pounds of garbage that piles up every moving day.

MADISON, Wis. — It’s been a rough summer for the Cows On Parade in Madison.

At least 20 cows have been vandalized since the parade started in June.

With so many students returning or new to campus this week, police want to get the word out about crimes that have been occurring in the downtown area over the summer.

UW officials have teamed up with Madison police to issue safety reminders.

For the first time since the 1960’s, there’s a new dorm on the UW campus. And in just a few weeks, students will be calling it home.

On the outside, it’s hard to believe that this modern looking structure is a UW residence hall. Inside — it’s definitely not what many would call normal dorm life.

“This is the first major residence hall since Ogg was built in 1965,” said Paul Evans, Director of University Housing.

MADISON, Wis. — Some lucky freshmen on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus will have a new state-of-the art dorm to call home this fall.

Dear Editor: Excellent article on Union South in Friday’s Capital Times. For those of us who work there, it was nice to hear the latest news about the future plans for this site.

The Wisconsin Union did a student survey three years ago to ask for input from the students about what they thought of the current Union South. The result was an opinion that the current building was cold, sterile and needed “more wood, more marble flooring and higher ceilings.” And a coffee shop, “like Starbucks.” The only thing they left out were crystal chandeliers. And they want someone else to pay for it.

Isn’t this indicative of society as well? We want first-rate schools for our kids, excellent roads for our SUVs, 75 cent-a-gallon gasoline. We just want someone else paying for it.

It started off slowly, a few cars lining the streets and small piles of used items covering street corners as students moved their belongings over the weekend.
On Monday, the chaos was no longer controlled as furniture piles grew higher, traffic grew heavier and the most common sight was students sitting on the steps of vacant apartments with blank stares. It was the final day for most Downtown tenants to move from one property to the next.

For Jeremy Kleier, a UW- Madison junior and recent 400 block West Mifflin Street resident, the day was carefree. As students rushed to clean out their former properties, Kleier relaxed on a couch outside his new home.

The scene outside a pink brick house on Gorhman St. was a common one Monday afternoon near the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A wooden futon was perched on the front lawn, buried under piles of boxes and dishes. Bunk bed frames rested against the front porch. Garbage bags overflowing with clothes were strewn amid lamps naked of their shades.

It’s a busy week for UW-Madison students as they get ready to pack up and move out.

Some have already begun the process, while others plan on making the move later this week.

Admistrators at UW Madison says their message of personal safety is not getting through to students. That’s a concern given the recent rash of violence on King Street, and several muggings downtwn.

MADISON, Wis. — With the start of the school year rapidly approaching, University of Wisconsin and Madison police are finalizing plans to protect students from the recent surge in downtown violence.

Eviscerated sofas, cracked bookshelves, dirty mattresses and bags of trash lined the streets of Madison on Moving Day today as thousands of students deal with moving companies and being temporarily without a home.

“The worst thing is being homeless for a day,” said Tony Fischer, who was using his parents’ minivan to move from his Mifflin Street house with his roommate Lucas Brasig. Their lease, like hundreds of others near the University of Wisconsin campus, expires today.

And so it begins . . . at least for some.
Pickup trucks and moving vans dominate Downtown and campus traffic, exhausted parents catch their breath next to a U-Haul trailer, old cabinets and mattresses occupy street corners. Some cars are so jam- packed, the only thing visible to passers-by is the driver’s seat through the windshield.

While it was only Friday, moving day was in full swing as Madison students and recent graduates made the switch from one residence to the next.

MADISON, Wis. — Madison city crews will start collecting trash at 4 a.m. Monday.

Students can make the job a little easier by putting recyclables in the green cart provided, or a clear bag.

If residen

MADISON, Wis. — Students started moving out on campus over the weekend.

But some apartments aren’t yet ready for new renters.

Tenants at the flood-damaged Park Terrace hauled out their belongings all day Sunday. They have to be out of the units by noon on Monday.

You know summer is winding down when you see thousands of UW Madison students moving downtown.

It’s Moving Day, and like every year, students scrambling to move out by Monday’s deadline leave behind trash on the streets for the city to pick up.

MADISON, Wis. — The faculty adviser to the Knights of Columbus is demanding the University of Wisconsin-Madison retract a statement that claims the school agreed to recognize the group as a student organization.

MADISON – A top University of Wisconsin-Madison official apologized Thursday for erroneously announcing the school had reached an agreement to recognize a Knights of Columbus affiliate as a student group.

MADISON, Wis. — As police struggle to end a string of violent muggings, another incident occurred in the downtown area Thursday morning.

A Madison man involved in a crash with Badger football player Joe Monty may face a felony charge.

Madison Police Expediter Officer Mike Hanson told 27 News a recommendation of a drunk driving injury charge against Patrick Mani has been given to the Dane County District Attorney. Hanson said that recommendation remains under review.

Over the last year, law schools have been the setting for disputes over whether student groups should have the right to receive institutional funds while restricting membership to those who share their religious beliefs � in violation of anti-bias rules.

The UW-Madison student government sent an angry letter to Mayor Dave Cieslewicz Tuesday opposing the mayor’s plan to charge $5 admission to the annual State Street Halloween party.
The letter, sent by six members of the Associated Students of Madison as well as a Teaching Assistants Association chair and county board member Ashok Kumar, accused the mayor of violating the students’ right to freedom of assembly.

A Guardian Angels contingent plans to start training Madison recruits this weekend.

The group’s Midwest coordinator, Mike Fuentes of Chicago, said five Chicago members would be in Madison Friday to patrol the State Street area.

On Saturday at noon, Angels planned to meet with six potential recruits on State to begin training.

“We have to learn how to fight and defend ourselves,” Fuentes said.

Despite a written statement from the University of Wisconsin-Madison reporting an agreement with the Knights of Columbus, an advocate for the group says there is no such agreement.

Casey Nagy, executive assistant to Chancellor John Wiley, said this morning that he believed the university had reached an agreement with the group Wednesday night to create an officially recognized student branch of the service organization.

But the group has approved no such agreement, said David French, director of the Alliance Defense Fund, a student group that has been working with the Knights.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Knights of Columbus Council 6568 have reached an agreement to allow the formation of a broadly inclusive, registered student organization in time for the fall 2006 semester, a statement from the university said Wednesday.

People gathered on the UW campus Wednesday night to raise support for those in Lebanon.

A second fundraiser was held tonight by several UW-Madison student groups and area businesses to raise money for the Lebanese people.
At their last fundraiser, they raised over $5000 for the cause.

Citizen committee endorses entry fee

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz’s plan to charge an entry fee to the Halloween party on State Street got an enthusiastic thumbs up from the citizen committee charged with overseeing public safety.

Only Adam Lichtenheld, the student representative on the Public Safety Review Board, voted against the proposal, said Ald. Paul Skidmore, who attended the Tuesday evening meeting.

….”I think it’s going to be the last, best chance to salvage Halloween,” Skidmore said this morning.

For college-aged students, the curriculum has extended far from the classroom.
An increasing number of students and recent college graduates are devoting time in service and volunteer work across the country and around the world, far from the comfort and safety of home.

MADISON – Armed with a recent federal appeals court ruling, Christian student groups are challenging University of Wisconsin campuses’ decisions to refuse to recognize them over their allegedly discriminatory membership requirements.

St. Vincent de Paul, Goodwill and UW-Madison are partnering to offer donation drop-off sites during moving week.

Students with stuff to offer can look for marked trucks near the intersections of Broom St. and Mifflin St.; Gorham St. and Henry St.; and Regent St. and Mills St. August 11th through the 14th.

Pres House, a church and community center bordering Library Mall at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, began a $17 million renovation this month that will add 61 units with up to four beds each. Feasibility studies are being conducted for similar projects at six other campuses, including the University of Illinois at Urbana.

Badger football player Joe Monty, who was nearly twice the legal limit for drinking and driving when he crashed his moped April 28, had a drunk driving citation, reduced to reckless driving.

Monty, 22, is still recovering from his crash injuries. Authorities said Monty’s moped slammed into an S-U-V in front of him. Authorities said the S-U-V’s driver had also been drinking and had stopped abruptly for a red light.

Madison may have a different feel for returning students this fall as construction continues along University Avenue and at the former University Square.

Sporting air conditioning, large rooms, walk-in closets and high ceilings, The University of Wisconsin�s newest dormitory, Newell J. Smith Hall, is anything but ordinary when it comes to residence halls.

Drawing both outrage and applause, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz introduced a plan last month for this fall�s annual Halloween celebration. If approved, the new plan will require a $5 entrance fee and will limit attendance on State Street to 50,000.

A high-roller is living out a gambler�s ultimate fantasy at black jack: The player is betting $30,000 dollars a hand, two hands at a time. He seems incapable of losing. And he�s already won millions. Story is about Adam Resnick, former UW-Madison student.

The first time Diklah Cohen boarded a bus in Madison, her eyes involuntarily began darting about, seeking the exit, looking for the spot where she’d be best buffered from a bomb blast.

“I started looking around. And then I thought, ‘You don’t need to do that,'” said Cohen, who grew up in Israel, in an interview last week. She recalled that once in Madison, someone forgot a bag on the bus, and she started panicking. But it was just a bag.

Madison police are stepping up an effort to protect the downtown from what Chief Noble Wray calls “mini Halloweens” every weekend.

Student leaders say the governor’s plan to limit tuition increases at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a step in the right direction but needs to go further.

….”We think it’s a step toward reinvesting back in the university system. However, we feel that what students have said they need, and families said they need, is a tuition freeze,” said David Glisch-Sanchez, university affairs director for the United Council of University of Wisconsin Students.